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Police Boost Radar Traps around School Zones

FEEL like speeding through a school zone? Better get out your chequebook.

With children of all ages back in school, Winnipeg police are setting up photo radar in school zones and other residential zones, with the goal of making the community safer.

Last week, more than 550 speeding violations were recorded in four school zones through the city, including 178 on westbound Corydon Avenue near Montrose Street.

"The number of violations is simply unacceptable," Const. Jason Michalyshen said. "One violation is too many, and our goal is to greatly reduce these infractions."

The Guru's View?

Well it's nice to see the mobile unit's are back to 'protecting' the children, by stepping up enforcement in school zones. The Commissionaires are well rested after spending the summer practicing in those same zones while school was out! That is, when they weren't protecting the barricades at unmanned construction zones.

This is a tougher assignment for them though, as they now have to stay awake due to the number of people walking by.

So will the school zones be safer? Having spent many hours set up in school zones responding to complaints, my guess is no.

Why? Most mobile units set up on the main routes surrounding the school zones where there is steady traffic flow and lower pedestrian traffic. Most of the students are getting dropped off by buses or parents near the entrance to the school. These areas are so congested that traffic moves very slowly

In fact the biggest traffic problems in school zones are the parking infractions by parents jamming up those areas.

The Guru does not condone speeding! Those who are actually speeding should be dealt with and they should be dealt with at the time of the offence! Not weeks later when a photo arrives.

The problem with these spoon fed press releases is the media just prints them and doesn't question anything.

If they did they would realize that the high percentage of the infractions recorded by the cameras are at a small rate of speed over a very low threshold. Speeds that if an officer was present would not even be given a second look. Why? Because traffic is flowing smoothly with no one being aggressive and they are stopping for x-walks etc.

Having officers present doing the enforcement creates a slower rate of speed amongst most drivers because they FEAR demerits! The 'bad drivers' who are driving aggressively and Really Speeding, get stopped, ticketed and receive appropriate demerits.

All the cameras do is take photos of those same speeders. No demerits are issued, so there is no incentive to change behavior. Most 'Bad Drivers' are usually driving someone else's car or a stolen car and as a result the registered owner is on the hook. Even if the driver takes the blame, all they do is pay the fine.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like a major liability to have a 'peace officer' (who is hopefully awake and paying attention) just sit there when a real speeder does go flying by. Do they get on the radio to report it. No! Or at least not that I've ever heard. If the same driver is impaired, suspended from driving or in a stolen vehicle, they now have continued on their way unhindered to continue breaking into homes, getting into an accident etc.

I wonder how many crimes have been allowed to occur because a photo Cash Machine is monitoring traffic instead of a human being.

On closing this commentary,

I noticed that just recently the FAQ section on the WPS Safe streets web site was changed. It used to boldly state that it was their objective to put photo radar out of business. It also cited that the benefit of photo enforcement was to help free up traffic officers to resolve other traffic problems.

Well, since the inception of photo enforcement the number of dedicated traffic officers doing enforcement has greatly decreased. The Central Traffic unit looks after Hit and Runs and fatal accident investigations and the Divisional Traffic Units that were created to deal with traffic problems in their divisions, have either disappeared or have only 1 person per side working.

The city now has created overtime projects to have officers out doing high volume enforcement in areas that are referred to by some as 'shooting fish in a barrel zones.' However these projects are sporadic and also are not safety motivated. Now they want to put cameras in the diamond lanes! Why build better infrastructure when you can capitalize on the defects.

If this is the way the city chooses to do business then that's their choice, but please stop proclaiming it's to make the streets safer!

Safer Streets? Not from photo enforcement.

Quit Smoking Now

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Back to The Guru's Views.

March 13/09 3:20pm

Don;

If the city really wants drivers to slow down they should post more speed limit signs. When I see one, I look at my speedometer... But getting a photo radar ticket for speeding past a playground at 7:54 a.m. in January (-25 temperature). Come on. Any parent sending a child to the playground under those conditions should be arrested. And there's no speed limit sign for at least 6 blocks prior to the trap (I haven't gone farther east to check but will before my case comes up in late April....). That fits my definition of a cash grab.

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Wed Apr 01 13:49:57 2009

George:

I have seen photo radar vans at playgrounds where no body uses,also on Grant busy morning traffic and they are blocking one lane,also how can we let them sit and idle for how long thought we were supposed to go green,this is a lot of pollution,I don,t do it they should not either.